The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet, it is incredibly rich and diverse.Stretching 2300 kilometres, this natural icon is so large it can even be seen from outer space.While it is known mostly for its large maze of colourful reefs, it also provides a home for a huge number of plants and animals.Some of these, such as turtles, have been around since prehistoric times and have changed little over the millennia.The breathtaking amount of marine creatures includes 600 types of soft and hard corals, more than 100 species of jellyfish, 3000 varieties of molluscs, 500 species of worms, 1625 types of fish, 133 varieties of sharks and rays, and more than 30 species of whales and dolphins

Within this vast expanse are a unique range of ecological communities is the Whitsunday Islands which have beautiful flowering coral reefs in easy accessible shallow water so all ages can enjoy what this truly stunning ecosystem has to offer.

The marine life in the Whitsundays area equals the best anywhere along the Reef.

covers 344,400km in area
includes the worlds largest coral reef ecosystem
includes some 3000 coral reefs, 600 continental islands, 300 coral cays and about 150 inshore mangrove islands
extends south from the northern tip of Queensland in north-eastern Australia to just north of Bundaberg
is between 60 and 250 kilometres in width
has an average depth of 35 metres in its inshore waters, while on outer reefs, continental slopes extend down to depths of more than 2000 metres
extends into the airspace above and into the earth beneath the seabed.
While coral reefs initially made the Great Barrier Reef famous, they only comprise about seven per cent of the Marine Park and the World Heritage Area.The rest of the Marine Park is an extraordinary variety of marine habitats, ranging from shallow inshore areas such as seagrass, mangroves, sand, algal and sponge gardens, and inter-reefal communities to deep oceanic areas more than 250km offshore.

The best the region has to offer, Whitsundays Sailing and the Great Barrier Reef with Ozsail.

Covering 344,400km2, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is:

bigger than Victoria and Tasmania combined

bigger than the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Holland combined

roughly the same area as Japan, Germany, Malaysia or Italy

approximately half the size of Texas

slightly smaller than the entire Baltic Sea.

The Marine Park stretches approximately 2300 km along the coast of Queensland in north-eastern Australia this is about the same length as the west coast of the USA from Vancouver to the Mexican border.